“Do I look like I mind?” Ava asked. They were sitting at the kitchen table playing doubles solitaire, the slap and slide of the cards a much-missed Southern comfort for Leah.
Night had fallen, and Evan was watching some kind of awful reality show over on the couch, and Leah was starting to wonder what exactly they were waiting on. She didn’t think Ava planned to spend the night, not with her kids back at the clubhouse, and she couldn’t imagine Evan would be ordered to stay here while Ava drove back on her own, in the dark. The lateness of the hour only made everything worse, she figured.
“No, but…” She lowered her voice. “How long do you think it’ll be like this? Will I be able to go to work tomorrow?” Despite Ian knowing the current situation, she loathed the idea of calling in sick so soon into her tenure with the company.
“Yeah, I think–” She was interrupted by a knock at the door. “Speak of the devil.”
Evan turned off the TV and went to answer it.
“Check first,” Ava reminded.
He did, and then unlocked and opened the door. Leah was expecting Mercy, come to collect his wife, but it was Carter who stepped inside, and she was immediately all butterflies and champagne fizz inside. The day’s stress and fatigue melted away, and she couldn’t keep from smiling broadly.
Ava’s little chuckle indicated she’d noticed.
Leah kicked her under the table as Carter walked toward them.
He looked tired, she noticed. A little pale and worn-down.
He smiled at her, though. Just at her, his gaze fixed, and a little color bloomed in his cheeks.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Oh, God,” Ava said, standing. “Y’all are still at the awkward ‘hi’ stage. I’ll leave you to it.”
Belatedly, Leah tore her gaze from Carter. “Wait, you’re going? You headed back home?” She shot a glance toward the window, the night inky black beyond the glass.
“To the clubhouse. The kids are probably already tired, and Mercy’s there.”
“If it’s not okay for me to be here alone, then it’s not okay for you to drive alone,” Leah reasoned.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got Evan,” Ava said, gesturing toward him with a flourish…then making a face.
“I saw that,” Evan said, pouting a little.
“It’s fine,” Ava said. “We’ll be fine. I can even text you if you want when I get there.”
“Please.”
As they left, Carter said, “I wouldn’t worry too much. Ava shot a man’s face clean off once.”
Leah felt her brows go up. “When?”
“In Louisiana.” He shrugged, and sat down in Ava’s vacated chair. “Cards?”
The door clicked shut.
She nodded. “Nervous fingers, I guess.” She displayed them, and found them trembling slightly – though the tremors weren’t from nerves. Not mostly. More like anticipation.
He studied them seriously a moment, and nodded.
“Are you my bodyguard for the night shift?” she asking, aiming for teasing.
But he nodded again, serious and drawn tight. “Hold on,” he said, and got up to go slide the chain home on the door, and check the deadbolt.
“Oh,” she said, as he stood a moment, fingertips braced on the panel, looking out through the peephole. “Ian sent two guards to the chop today to watch out for Mom and Dad. Big guys. They looked like they just got done fighting Sly Stallone or something.” Her chuckle came out faint. Why was she so jittery, suddenly?
He turned, and walked back toward the table, unhurried, but with a clear purpose. His expression was so serious, like it had been this morning.
“You know,” she said as he neared, “if you didn’t want to go to all the trouble, we could stage a very public argument and then keep clear of each other. No one would think I was important to the club, then, and no one would have to–”
He reached her, and took hold of her hands; they’d been fluttering around her head as she spoke. Closed his over them, warm, and firm, and callused at the base of each finger from his handlebars. He tugged her up out of her chair, and reeled her in toward him.
She went up on her toes automatically. “Babysit me,” she finished on an unsteady breath. “Carter?”
His own breath, when he released it, wasn’t all that steady either. “I know I ought to be doing this the slow way. The right way. A gentleman and all that–”
“You’re a gentleman.”
“I’m really not.” He released her hand and cupped his palm around her throat, thumb skating up her pulse, speeding faster, faster by the second. “We haven’t